Make your Mac your own, without third party software. Whether you’re new to OS X or a longtime user, there’s probably something in System Preferences you haven’t found yet. Here are nine things you might have missed.

Set Up Autoreplace For Easy Text Expansion

If you head to the Keyboard section of System Preferences, then click the Text tab, you can create text expansions for yourself.

If there are relatively long phrases you find yourself typing often, create a one-word shortcut for it – when you type that phrase in any program, OS X will transform it for you. It’s also a great way to quickly use ASCII art – you can see, I’ve added a “/shrug” command for myself.

Schedule Wake-Up and Sleep Times

If you use your computer on a set schedule, and would prefer you didn’t have to wake it up yourself, head to the Energy Saver section of your Mac’s settings. Click Schedule at the bottom-right corner and you can tell your Mac when to wake up and go back to sleep.

Set Up Hot Corners To Quickly Do Anything

Hot Corners is something many Mac users swear by, but not everyone knows about. And it’s kind of hidden: head to “Mission Control”, then click the “Hot Corners” button.

You can now trigger a number of things by moving your mouse to a particular corner. You might hate it, but if not you’ll wonder how you ever used your Mac without it.

Add a Lock Message In Case You Lose Your Mac

In System Preferences, head to Security & Privacy and you’ll find the Set Lock Message button.

Personally I like to leave contact information, in case I lose my laptop and someone wants to return it. But you could just leave a nasty message for your sister, who keeps trying to use your laptop when you’re out of the room and totally needs to stop doing that.

Turn Off Notifications During Your Work Day

Notifications can be the enemy of focus, which is why you should try to avoid them during your work day. Head to Notifications, then look under Do Not Disturb.

While you’re at it, I recommend making sure notifications won’t show up on mirrored devices – you don’t want a message from your buddy showing up during a presentation, right?

Explore What Your Trackpad Can Do

This isn’t really little-known, but if your Mac has a trackpad you should really check out the Trackpad settings. It’s just as much a tutorial as it is a preferences panel – you’ll learn some useful gestures, and you’ll be able to tweak others to better suit your needs.

Justin Pot is a technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He loves technology, people and nature – and tries to enjoy all three whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.